Airbus: "There will be no dry layoffs", according to FO

The management and the unions of Airbus will initial on Monday afternoon an agreement within the framework of the social plan (PSE) and "there will be no dry layoffs", told AFP Dominique Delbouis, FO coordinator ( 1st union) within the Airbus Group.

"It is a great satisfaction. There will be no hard redundancies. We will get there at the end of March by the opening of a final negotiation which will allow us to reach zero forced redundancies. We have a commitment from management in this sense, "he added. 

In June, Airbus announced the elimination of 15,000 workstations, including 5,000 in France, due to the crisis in the aeronautics sector, hit hard by the consequences of the new coronavirus pandemic.

Asked by AFP, the management declined to comment.

The partial activity will make it possible to preserve 1,500 jobs

On September 14, Airbus staff was frozen by the announcement of Airbus executive director Guillaume Faury who considered "unlikely that voluntary departures are sufficient" to achieve 15,000 job cuts, including 5,000 in France.

After three months of negotiations, the two parties will seal an agreement that preserves 1,500 positions through the Long-Term Partial Activity (APLD), with limited wage losses.

Other measures, such as early retirement (at least 1,000), the Corac system (Council for Civil Aeronautical Research, 600 jobs), departures for business creation (400), retirements (400), "All that put to end, we arrive at the initial objective of zero forced departure", detailed the trade unionist.

In total, 4,248 jobs were threatened at Airbus planes, and more than 700 at Stelia and ATR, subsidiaries of the European aircraft manufacturer.

"For us, the social plan is almost complete", rejoices Dominique Delbouis.

Officially, the legal procedure ends on Thursday, but the PSE (job protection plan) will not be closed until the end of March.